


Mulled Wine

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:19:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: thorduna prompted “... sweet mulled wine kisses when the brothers finally admit they're in love.”





	Mulled Wine

  


May I make us dinner?

The same text sent every day at lunchtime. Loki can picture the words waiting on the row above the alphabet on Thor’s phone.

 

That would be lovely.

The reply suggested. Known. Sent every day except the ones when he’d had flu, and then Thor had made them dinner anyway and brought it over, along with sacks of groceries and medicines.

  


It was raining again when Loki got out of work. The wettest autumn in his memory. And the earliest. The season had almost been skipped over by the last dozen years. Summers had been too hot and too dry. Falls had been far too hot and too dry, then too dry and too cold, then snow, and then summer again.

 

This autumn had only just begun, technically, and already it seemed to rival those he remembered from childhood. The comfortable air, never making you break a sweat, but putting you in no danger if your jacket was too thin. The slow turn of the leaves. Everything heavy with the water held in it. The scents earthy and thick. Almost edible. Every surface made darker with dampness. Puddles like mirrors, surprising you with the wrong sides of birds in flight or leaves floating up toward your feet. The sky grey and safe, the clouds like camouflage and shelter, hiding everything from the sun’s piercing scream and the moon’s dead eye. Without those two revenants haunting the air, proclaiming their day and night, time seemed to soften. Its edges blurred. Nights were brighter and days were darker. Twilight stretched. It was easier to sleep.

 

The rain was deafening where it hit the car. No space between the drops. Loki’s windshield wipers were nearly useless. He was lucky Thor’s street was a quiet one, and that he knew its turns by heart. He parked close to the house, ran up the walk, and took the steps in one bound with a boyish yelp, landing on Thor’s porch with a scuffing thud. The roar behind him swelled and he turned back to stare out at the downpour from the safety of the low porch roof, with its dry, happy spiders spinning in all the corners. The world was a streaked blur, dissolving and washing away. He shook out his umbrella and brought it in to dry on the foyer floor.

 

“Are you starving?” Thor called.

“I am,” Loki admitted, untying soaked laces and tugging off his shoes, debating a moment and peeling off his socks too. Thor’s floors were immaculate--and heated.

 

Thor was at the island slicing up an apple when Loki came in. There were two pots on the stove, both looking like soup, but neither smelling like it. One had a towel wrapped all the way around its lid so that the cloth went inside the pot, stretched tight across the top. What his brother wanted with an ill-fitting lid and a steamed piece of cotton, Loki couldn’t fathom.

 

There were so many scents in the air, all of them pleasant and none of them savory, except perhaps the butter. Loki caught cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, saffron, citrus, and his brother.   

“Dinner’s going to take a minute,” Thor said. “So, in the meantime.”

Loki washed his hands and helped himself to a slice of apple while Thor poured almonds into a dish.

“What are you making?”

“Mulled wine for before and after,” Thor said, getting two clear glass mugs from the cupboard and ladling the drink into them, then tucking a perfect wheel of orange into each. “Cheers,” Thor smiled, handing Loki a mug.

“Cheers.”

“There’s a chicken on the grill.” Thor looked over his shoulder out the back window. “Hopefully it isn’t soup.”

“I smell saffron,” Loki said.

“Chelo,” Thor smiled, and Loki grinned at the ceiling.

“You’re a god.”

“Don’t jinx it.”

 

It was the first dish either of them could remember. Perhaps the first they couldn’t forget. Frigga had taken them to Rumi’s Kitchen for Persian on Friday nights when Odin went out with friends from work. Chelo every time--they’d insisted--but they’d been willing to try anything else with it. The restaurant had closed while they were away at college. It had been the first twinge of mortality felt by the twins. If so dear a part of their lives could come to an end, so could the whole.

 

“I miss her,” Loki said.

“They’ll be up for Thanksgiving in under two months. We’ll be down for Christmas in less than three.”

“I know,” Loki murmured. “I just miss,” he shook his head and spread the fingers of his left hand.

“All of it,” Thor finished, and Loki nodded. “Seeing her every day. And everything else we took for granted. We wasted so much time waiting for this. Thinking we weren’t truly living back then and that adulthood was when life got good.”

“I don’t know what adulthood means anymore. But it’s all spilt milk anyway.”

“True,” Thor sighed. He pulled out the stools so that they could sit at the counter, close to the heat of the stove and the scents coming from it, side by side with their knees touching.

“No,” Loki said, squinting, and Thor went still, unsure of what was suddenly forbidden. “We weren’t wrong to wait for this.” He flattened his hand against the countertop with his fingers spread wide and patted it twice. “To want it. This part we got right… it’s just that we thought this was all there would be. Or at least that it was the majority. That work would fit and feel meaningful. That progress would be ceaseless--and desirable.”

“Now we know progress just means more work for the same pay, which translates into lower pay.”

“Promotion and opportunity are the filthiest lies,” Loki sighed.

Thor nodded beside him and they griped about the details of their days until an alarm went off on Thor’s phone.

 

“Hold the umbrella for me?” Thor asked, and Loki followed him out onto the patio, staying close to keep the rain off their heads and away from their dinner.

 

When Thor finished plating the chicken, another timer went off.

“Moment of truth,” Thor said, taking the lid and its towel off the pot, flooding the kitchen with an impossible perfume. “Fingers crossed for a thick, intact tahdig.”

“That’s what she said.”

Thor replaced the pot’s lid with a plate, held it firmly in place, and flipped the whole thing over, grinning when he felt the weight of the chelo transfer onto the serving dish. The fickle gods of rice were on his side today.

 

When Thor lifted the pan away, Loki applauded the perfect golden disk it had left behind, then leaned in for a deep breath and exhaled a long ah.

“Officially a god,” Loki pronounced. He carved the chicken while Thor sliced the chelo like pie.

 

They vowed to save half the rice for tomorrow, then ate it all anyway. It had been ten years. Each mouthful sent them sailing back through time to sit down with their ten, fifteen, twenty-years-younger mother and brother. Their one dinner a week free from the awkward tyranny of their otherwise absent father, who came home just long enough to ask what they were doing and who they planned to be, never satisfied on either count. At the restaurant there was no fear or tension, wondering when he’d pounce and why. Just the pleasures of a perfectly prepared meal, their mother’s graceful conversation, and the toes of their tennis shoes bumping together beneath the table.

 

“Ordinarily I’d say we should take a walk while we digest...” Loki craned his neck to look out the window.

“But we’d have to swim,” Thor guessed.

Loki nodded.

 

They moved to the couch where they could lean back and be lazy with their feet up on the ottoman. Loki hummed and poked his stomach.

“I’m going to be an uncle,” Thor noted, palming Loki’s belly and rubbing it in wide, gentle circles.

“To a horse, by the look of it.”

“A Clydesdale,” Thor agreed.

“Well, I hope you’re zoned for it. My place doesn’t even allow cats.”

“But it’s not a pet, it’s your baby. That has to count for something with the landlord.”

“Your baby,” Loki corrected. “You did this to me.”

“If you’re going to blame anyone or anything other than Loki for this, then you’ll have to blame the rice.”

“No, I’m blaming you. You put that chelo in front of me. You know butter and my willpower have never once been in the same room together. If you were a shitty cook, I’d be fine.”

“Lesson learned. We’re having SpaghettiOs for dinner from now on.”

“That’s fratricide,” Loki shuddered. “I can’t go from Persian to Campbell’s.”

“I’ve ruined you.”

“Yes. You have. I’m glad we’re on the same page. This is all your fault.”

Thor made a mock-serious face of agreement, closing his eyes and furrowing his brow as he tightened his lips and nodded.

“You have to make chelo again. Food Baby needs a brother, Thor. You know parents are unbearable without a sibling there to witness and dilute all the insanity.”

“Certain fathers anyway,” Thor said.

“Well, we’re his sons. Between us we probably have all of his bullshit. We can’t unload that much stupidity onto one tiny person.”

“Clydesdale,” Thor corrected.

“Clydesdale,” Loki giggled, then sagged against Thor’s shoulder. “It’s not the size, it’s the mind,” Loki murmured. “There’s only so much one can take.”

 

They sat staring at their pale, bony feet and their high, rounded bellies, hearing the rain drum the roof and tap the windows.

“Do you think he fucked us up?” Thor asked.

“I know he did.”

“Do you think we’ll ever get over it?”

“I think we have, for the most part. Which isn’t the same as forgetting it… and shouldn’t be.”

“What was wrong with us?” Thor whispered.

“Nothing,” Loki soothed. “It was just… being measured so frequently gives you the impression that you’re not measuring up. Constantly being questioned leaves you thinking you don’t have any answers. Heaven knows he was never there to teach us anything. So we were just frustrated. Angry all the time. You were always getting into fights. I was always lying or hiding. I wish I’d handled it better, but sometimes it just feels… justified. Our reaction, I mean, not his putting us in that position.”

Thor hummed.

“For a long time, he was the reason I didn’t want children,” Thor admitted, and he felt Loki stiffen against his side. “I was so afraid of being like him. But now…”

“Now what?” Loki nudged. His voice was only air, but he didn’t sound sleepy. His whispering made Thor think of fear. Of dreading what was to come.

“Now I don’t want kids because making life means handing down a death sentence. I couldn’t guarantee a child anything beyond that. I think I’d feel like a killer. And because I’m selfish, I guess,” Thor shrugged. “I barely have enough time to do what I want as it is.”

“You’re not selfish,” Loki said, melting again, letting his head sink onto Thor’s shoulder.

“Lazy then,” Thor offered.

“No, not lazy either. Just honest… you poor bastard.”

They giggled and jostled each other. Thor knocked Loki’s right foot with his left.

“How are your toes already cold?”

“I took them off the heated floor. You know I don’t make my own warmth. I’m a snake.”

“Well let’s get you back on the floor then.”

 

Thor shoved the ottoman aside, then stole the cushions from the bay windows and laid them on the rug in front of the couch. Loki braced pillows against the bottom of the sofa so that they could lean back against them, sitting more or less upright, sipping their drinks.

 

Their great grandmother’s iron cauldron stood beside the hearth on three thin feet, its belly full of dry wood. Loki joined Thor in making newspaper knots to use for kindling.

“What about you?” Thor asked.

“What about me?” Loki said, wrinkling his nose, trying to remember what they’d been talking about and then wondering how this could follow cold feet.

“You’ve always said you don’t want kids, but you’ve never given the reason. Is it Dad?”

“No, not really. He doesn’t help, but ultimately there’s Mom to factor into that equation, so it comes out even, which means it’s a non-issue. I’ve just never seen the appeal. The time and energy required. The screaming, crying, cleaning, feeding, and shitting. The constant interruptions. Demands for attention. They’re so helpless for so long, and then hell-bent on self-destruction. I get scared half to death just seeing other people’s kids.”

“I know,” Thor said. “It looks like a nightmare.”

“And, I mean, let’s be honest,” Loki sighed, sinking back into the cushions while Thor lit the fire. “I can count the people I really love on my thumbs. I like plenty of other species fine, but ours is down with leeches and mosquitoes in my book.”

Thor laughed, increasingly inclined to agree with his brother’s rankings.

“Speaking of other species, you wanna pour some wine on that Clydesdale?”

“I do,” Loki purred.

 

Thor brought two fresh mugs, filled to their brims, each with another bright garnish of orange, then went back to grab a small plate of butter cookies. They sat, breathing in the spiced steam, nibbling sweets, and letting their toes roast at the fire’s edge.

 

They’d been drinking water with their meals all week, and coffee with dessert afterward. Satisfying in a different way. It kept them sharp and energetic into the wee hours. But what the wine dulled, it made up for in warmth. The depressing effects of alcohol extended only to their reflexes. Their conversations always deepened as they drank. Thoughts swung back and forth as though their minds were one vessel. And wine came with the pleasant perk of necessitating sleepovers. Sometimes they stayed where they were and spent the night on the sofa or the floor. Sometimes they made it upstairs to one bed or the other, but never to both, still talking the way they had when they’d been young and shared a room.

 

“I can’t imagine growing up in that house without you,” Thor said, shaking his head in disbelief even at the sound of the words. “I can’t imagine anything without you, but you know what I mean.”  

“I don’t think I could have survived it either,” Loki admitted. “It wasn’t like I could’ve gone to Mom and said, ‘Divorce him before I murder him, please, because those are the only endings.’”

“I never wanted to have friends over because I couldn’t trust him to behave himself with them.”

“I know. And that house was so isolated. Our three neighbors were widowed retirees.”

“Having each other to bitch to probably saved his life.”

“Not probably,” Loki shook his head, “definitely. I wonder if he knows it.”

“My money’s on no.”

“Summer vacations were good though,” Loki sighed.

“Heaven until six pm,” Thor nodded.

“I always thought it was such a shame there was no real autumn break.”

“It was. Still is. He was always off with us for Thanksgiving and a chunk of Christmas, so those were a shitshow.”

“I didn’t get to love fall until we left for college,” Loki remembered. “And then I felt like we’d been cheated.”

“We were. We’ll have to make up for lost time,” Thor said, smiling and clinking their glasses together. “Freshen your drink?”

“Please,” Loki nodded, handing over his mug.

 

Thor put another log on the fire after he gave Loki both of their glasses. He grabbed his brother’s toes as he shuffled back across the cushions.

“Much better,” Thor approved, giving a fond squeeze to the pads before settling beside his brother, who was lifting Thor’s orange slice from the mug with his teeth. Getting caught in the act had never been enough to stop Loki. He finished fishing it out and carefully slid it into his own drink.

“Thief.”

“In other news, water is wet.”

 

At this they cocked their heads, turning their left ears toward the windows to listen to the rain.

 

“You said we weren’t wrong to wait for this,” Thor murmured, lightly clinking their drinks together again, hearing the bright ring of glass above the low roar of the downpour and the cracks and hisses of burning wood. Loki smiled down at their hands and gave a sustained blink. “Is it what you were picturing?”

“More or less,” Loki said.

“What’s the less?”

Loki gave a small, dismissive shake of his head and smiled a small, tight smile.

“You know how it is when you’re young. There’s so much you get wrong. So much you think is possible.”

“What’s impossible?” Thor whispered.

“You,” Loki scolded, laughing, nudging his brother and rolling his eyes, then going strangely still.

“You just tried to blow me off and accidentally answered the question, didn’t you?” Thor asked, and watched Loki shrink, close his eyes, and silently mouth obscenities.

 

Thor pursed his lips tighter and tighter and held his breath to try to suppress his laughter. It looked to be a losing battle until he saw tears sliding down his brother’s cheeks.

“Shh, none of that,” Thor soothed, leaning over to kiss the wet from Loki’s face. Loki was still rigid, sitting with his eyes closed and his nostrils flared. “I’ve always felt something was… I won’t say missing… but that more was possible.” Loki opened his eyes at this. “Preferable,” Thor smiled. Loki broke into a watery grin, then gaped and started crying again. Thor carefully set their drinks aside and hauled Loki into his lap. “What’s the matter?” Thor whispered, rocking his brother slowly and rubbing his arm.

“We’ve lost so much time,” Loki sobbed, collapsing against Thor’s chest and heaving shattered, stuttering breaths.

“We’ll make up for it,” Thor murmured, and kissed the top of his brother’s head until he finally calmed.

 

Loki dried his face in the crook of his elbow and sniffled a few times. Carefully resumed his place at Thor’s left side. Wiggled his fingers to ask for his drink. Thor handed it to him and draped his left arm over Loki’s shoulders. He felt them slowly relax as Loki sat sipping his wine and sagging back into him.

 

They watched the flames dance over the logs behind the silhouettes of their feet. Thor squeezed Loki’s toes with his own and found them chilly from the time they’d spent away from the hearth. He crawled forward to throw another log on the fire and then sat back to watch the swirling bursts of sparks sent up by feathery strips of bark as they burned.

 

When they finished their drinks, Thor looked over and found Loki waiting for him. His eyebrows were tipped up, sad and doubtful. His lips pressed thin, bracing each other. Thor wondered what was bracing the rest of his brother. There was only one of Loki. Life left everyone hanging like that. Or tried to.

 

Thor squeezed Loki’s shoulders and Loki fluttered a hand in front of his breast.  
“I feel like I’m going to go up the chimney with the smoke,” Loki whispered. “Weightless.”

“Well, I’m always plenty heavy,” Thor said, turning and sitting astride Loki’s lap, sinking down onto his thighs. He took Loki’s hands and put them on his waist. “You can hang onto me.”

Loki nodded and wedged his fingers under the waistband of Thor’s jeans, pinning his hands in place. Thor slid his own fingers through Loki’s hair until they were fitted to the back and top of his skull. Loki sighed and seemed to settle at this.

 

Thor kissed the bridge of Loki’s nose. Then the tip, firm and little against his lips. He nudged it up with the tip of his own nose and kissed each corner of Loki’s mouth. The oil from the orange peels and the floral spice of the cloves were the dominant flavors.

“You taste like a pomander,” Thor said, and Loki smiled.

“Your fault.”

“Fault my ass. It’s fantastic,” Thor murmured, and squeezed Loki with his knees before leaning in to kiss him again.

 

Thor felt a fast breath puff out against his upper lip when he pulled Loki’s lower lip into his mouth. There was a small sound when he licked past Loki’s lips. Something airy and soft, caught high in his throat. Thor waited until Loki’s lips closed around his tongue and gently pulled it in.

“Mm,” Loki hummed, then leaned his head back laughing. “Pomander.”   

“Someday we’ll have to try this after chelo and before wine.”

“Tomorrow,” Loki said, and Thor nodded and peppered his brother’s face with tiny kisses, which were still relatively big thanks to his full lips.

“My neck,” Loki said, offering it up.

Thor’s kisses were so soft Loki thought his ribs were dissolving. Goosebumps puckered his skin as Thor tickled him, dragging his mouth across the tiny gold hairs that covered his throat, then properly pressing in with his lips.

“What about you?” Loki asked.

Thor pointed to the lobes of his ears and the lids of his eyes. The base of his throat and the center of his breast. Loki kissed each one in turn, pulling Thor’s t-shirt up to reach the last place. No longer tasting pomander. Only Thor. Which was something like a croissant without its egg wash.

 

When the squeeze of their jeans and the seams of their boxer briefs became unbearable, they draped their pants over the back of the couch and threw a blanket over their legs, then settled in to watch the last red light of the fire go darting through the embers. When it finally went dim, Thor grabbed the shovel and turned the ashes over, spreading them wide to cool.

 

They climbed up to bed with the scent of woodsmoke in their hair, though they didn’t notice it until morning when they stayed in bed, kissing and nuzzling, dragging their feet, not wishing to rush the night out the door. The rain was softer, but still falling, keeping things dim and sleepy, making it easy to linger. When their bellies began to complain, they went downstairs to begin another pot of chelo and make up for more lost time.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please don't comment or repost


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